Jean Banchet was Chicago's first celebrity chef, a prodigiously talented cook and gregarious personality who almost single-handedly raised Chicago's dining reputation from a steak-and-potatoes town to a serious restaurant city.

Banchet, 72, died Sunday in his Jupiter, Fla., home after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

"It was three weeks ago today that we got the news," said Banchet's wife, Doris. "It went so fast it was unbelievable. February would have been our 50th anniversary."

"It is sad," said Pierre Pollin, former chef/owner at Le Titi de Paris and a close friend. "He was the greatest chef we had in Chicago."

In 1973, Chicago's culinary reputation began and ended with steak. Then came Jean Banchet, who had been brought to the area by famed restaurateur Arnie Morton to head the kitchen at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. When Banchet was ready to strike out on his own, he selected a property in Wheeling — the closest place to Chicago that he could afford. Morton presented Banchet with a turn-of-the-century street lamp, which stands outside the property to this day.

Banchet opened Le Francais in February of 1973. The original building was destroyed by fire in 1975, and Banchet rebuilt, setting the new restaurant deeper into the property and designing it along the lines of a French auberge, or country inn. The Banchets built their home at the far end of the property; the chef's commute was a stroll through the grass, coffee cup in hand.

Despite the restaurant's relatively remote location, lovers of fine dining found their way to Le Francais, and its reputation grew rapidly. In 1980, Bon Appetit magazine declared Le Francais "America's Best Restaurant," and reservations, which were already difficult to acquire without weeks of planning, became even harder to secure. Deep-pocketed guests from other cities would land their private planes at nearby Palwaukee Airport, flying in just to experience Banchet's food.

"When you have people willing to travel 28 miles (from the city), to wait six months for a reservation, you know somebody's doing something remarkable," said Phil Mott, who purchased Le Francais in 2001 and operated it for two years. "He changed the landscape; he made it possible for Charlie Trotter and all the other great chefs."

Chefs throughout the city made a point of eating in Le Francais. Jean Joho, chef/proprietor of Everest restaurant and a legendary chef in his own right, said Le Francais was the first fine-dining restaurant he visited when he arrived in Chicago in 1983.

"He created a temple of gastronomy," said Joho. "He did something different from what everybody did at the time. Most of the food (elsewhere) was really conservative; Jean brought a new way to run restaurants and prepare foods. He used ingredients and preparations people hadn't seen before. He gave you a lot for the eyes before you ate."

"It was amazing; it was food in a circus," said chef Didier Durand, of Cyrano's Farm Kitchen. "There was all this presentation, and a level of excitement that never disappointed."

Naha and Brindille chef/owner Carrie Nahabedian called her two years at Le Francais "the greatest experience of my life," and said the lessons learned there are still with her – and on hermenus.

"The brioche we make is Jean’s recipe," she said. "Everyone still trades that recipe because it’s possibly one of the best brioche recipes of all time. All my sauces are based in the principles I learned from Jean. No one cooked like him."

"Le Francais was the place to work in the United States," said Joe Doppes, who worked for Banchet for about a year in 1987 and today is chef/owner of Bistrot Margot. "He forged a path for us chefs today, by his love of cooking and nothing more than that. Here was a guy who became a celebrity because he was an incredible cook."

And when Doppes was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1988, Banchet offered strong support, visiting the young chef often. After Doppes' recovery, Banchet brought a visiting friend — the legendary chef Paul Bocuse — to Doppes' restaurant for lunch.

"When I was working for him," Doppes said, "I never got to see that side."

"He was an absolute perfectionist to the point of driving everyone mad, including himself," said Michael Lachowicz, one of only four people to hold the head-chef title at Le Francais (Banchet, Roland Liccioni and Don Yamauchi are the others). "You walked into his restaurant and felt his presence. Every day I walked into that restaurant, whether I was a line cook or a partner, I felt reverence when I walked into Le Francais."

"Banchet wasn't afraid to go into the dining room and shake hands," Lachowicz said. "He felt as comfortable in the dining room as in the kitchen, and that made him marketable when there was no Twitter or Facebook. In the kitchen, he was stomping everywhere, a dinosaur in a flower patch. In the dining room, he danced."

Banchet's twin passions, other than cooking, were riding motorcycles and playing cards; his card games, usually with fellow chefs, were as notable for what Banchet served as they were for the card games. "He'd cook a pigeon, a baby chicken, make a few desserts and set out cheese," Pollin said. "It was amazing."

Banchet also had a ferocious sense of humor, as evidenced by this excerpt of a 1985 review by Tribune critic Paul Camp:

"Recently, one experienced diner fell uncharacteristically silent at this point in the evening. A single glance revealed the reason he sat in shock: A container for a McDonald's Big Mac sat on his plate in place of his order. Little plastic packets of catsup and mustard lay to the side along with a fresh parsley sprig garnish. The waiter then carefully opened the top of the box as if it were a silver dome. There sat a plastic hamburger with a bite already taken out of it.

A doggy toy! At a world class French restaurant! You've got to be kidding.

After gales of laughter, the waiters quickly redressed themselves, whisked away the burger, squeaking it a couple of times for effect, and placed the dinerss order in front of him: a stuffed rabbit that proved to be the best selection of the evening."

"I worked for Jean in the late '70s," recalled Mary Beth Liccioni, owner of Les Nomades. "It was my first important job. I went out in a taxi to ask if I could work for him; he'd never had a woman in his kitchen, but he hired me. It was a wonderful experience; he was a very intelligent man and very gifted. He had a fabulous personality, very charismatic, and whenever he walked into a room, people wanted to be around him."

Banchet, for his part, relished his star status and loved to hold court.

"I was always fascinated by the way he was able to talk with other chefs," said Mott. "You knew that they hated the way he bragged about his success, but they were unable to move away from him. Most realized that he truly meant no harm; he was just a chef who worked very hard and found great success, which paved the way for many of them to succeed here.

"I called him a scamp, and he readily admitted he was one," Mott said. "He may have let his ego show at times, but in the end, he was just a humble bus-driver's son with a golden touch in the kitchen."

Born in Roanne, France (a small town near Lyon), in 1941, Banchet worked at many restaurants in Europe. He trained at La Pyramide, a legendary restaurant in Vienne owned by Fernand Point, who forged the careers of Paul Bocuse, the Troisgros brothers (Jean and Pierre), Georges Perrier and other famous chefs. Banchet served as chef at the Playboy Club in London, his last stop before coming to the U.S. to work at Lake Geneva Playboy Club in 1968.

"He was quite a character," Liccioni said. "Just as Charlie (Trotter) inspired his generation of chefs, Banchet inspired and taught the chefs around him."

Liccioni, with her then-husband Roland, eventually took over Le Francais in 1989, after Banchet's first retirement, and operated the restaurant for 10 years. Banchet returned to Le Francais in 1999 and ran the restaurant for three more years.

Banchet retired for keeps in 2001, selling his restaurant to Mott. But he remained an influential figure among Chicago chefs. He helped establish the Jean Banchet Awards, which recognizes excellence among Chicago chefs, and raises money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Banchet was too ill to attend the announcement of this year's nominees; the foundation will present a tribunte to Banchet during January's awards gala.

Banchet's last public appearance was in October, when he was inducted into the Chicago Chefs Hall of Fame.

Funeral services will be held Monday in Jupiter, but Doris Banchet said there will be a memorial service for the chef in Chicago in the near future.

"Jean was one in a million — nay, one in a billion," said Mike Moran, who was Le Francais' last owner. "He was my hero; he took a piece of my heart with him."

Besides his wife, Doris, Banchet is survived by a brother, Lucien, and a sister, Monique, both living in Roanne.